WOD Blog | Workout of the day

If you have been coming to the Olympic lifting class recently, then be sure to attend tomorrow. And don’t attend the CrossFit class before that please. If you want to work on your Oly lifting on Saturdays, do just that class. If you want to get a MetCon in to work on your capacity, then just do the CrossFit class. Be smart about the way you approach training.

It’s Got Squat to do with You!

Why do we squat? Simple: It makes your stronger, faster and most importantly it’s fun! Squats are excellent for building muscle, gaining strength, increasing flexibility and boosting metabolic rate.
The squat is a functional movement so mastering the technique will make all aspects of your life easier. It is a complex movement using different muscle groups and joints. The main muscle groups targeted are in the legs, the quadriceps (muscles in front of your leg), hamstrings (muscle at the back of your leg) and gluteus maximus (your posterior). Over and above these muscle groups, it also engages your stomach muscles (abdominals), back, arms and shoulders. Squatting will also encourage mobility in the hips, lower back, calves and shoulders.

Why is this important and why do you care?

The reason is that these muscles are all needed to maintain posture and balance, and will strengthen the muscles required for the Olympic lifts, and build strength for deadlifts and other CrossFit related movements. Squatting also promotes the release of testosterone which is good for muscle growth.
Besides the obvious benefits listed above, squats will also improve performance in areas such as running speed, acceleration, power and jumping ability.

Why do we squat below parallel?

Some of your gym buddies may ask you this question. “Below parallel” is defined as the bottom position of the squat when your hip crease is below your knee crease. Squatting to this depth enables the movement to reach its natural finishing point. It also allows the hamstrings and glutes to assist the knees in raising the body up out of the squat. This full range of motion deep squat will strengthen your hamstrings, hips, glutes, and many other muscles. In comparison to this, half-squats focus mainly on the quadricep muscle.

Why do we push our knees out when squatting?

Pushing your knees out at the beginning of the squat and maintaining knees out when returning to upright position of the squat allows the adductors (muscle in the inside of your legs) to be activated. These muscles assist you in initiating a stretch reflex using all the muscles of your posterior chain in the best way possible. The active hip allows you to move your thighs out of the way so that you can achieve a good depth in your squat.
By moving your body through a full range of motion, you’ll not only build strength, you’ll improve your flexibility as well. Deep squatting helps to increase the range of motion in the entire hip complex. An additional benefit is reduced back pain and improved overall mobility required for all sport and general daily activities.

Test week – it’s like a week long event at the gym! We use test week to evaluate the effectiveness of our programming and coaching methods, and it’s there to help you gauge changes in your fitness. If you haven’t been recording your test week results, start doing so this week. Especially because we are undergoing some changes.

Up until now we have been using the ‘WoD Conditioning’ and ‘WoD’ programs to cater to the needs of newer and more ‘experienced’ members. It’s been moderately successful, but as our membership numbers grow we have a more vast array of levels to cater to. Using the three month guideline to move progress from WoD Conditioning is also not very effective. Three months means little if your fitness hasn’t progressed sufficiently, or if you’re progressing faster.

From next week there will be three different programs – Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. You will all still be in the same classes, performing largely the same movements, but each group’s program will be tweaked to cater to the developmental needs of members in those groups.

We are going to use the CrossFit Jozi Athletic Skills chart to help you and us determine when you should be progressing to the next group.That means you will always have goals to work towards.

You will note that for each level there is a % of each section that you have to achieve. For example, under Beginner it says ‘65% of each section.’ The tasks are broken in to sections: Bodyweight, Gymnastics, Powerlifting, etc. 65% of each section means that you need to accomplish 65% of each of those sections under the Beginner group before you can progress to the Intermediate group.

We will use test weeks, as well as regular classes within a 6-8 week cycle to assess where you’re at.

If this doesn’t make much sense to you, your coaches will be repeating this regularly throughout the week. Remember, the changes are being instilled to encourage better improvements in YOUR fitness.

Follow the program, work on your goats, eat clean at least 80% of the time, drill your mobility, sleep and recover well, and the changes will blow you away!